[Leveling] Which spec is fastest?

So,

My friend recently leveled his Paladin and he said that in Protection, you can pull a few more mobs to smack em down all at once.
Even though the above stated is most likely true, he found that Retribution still leveled faster, is this correct?

Although unconventional, I'm leveling as Holy on my pally alt and it does quite a bit single-target DPS with Denounce spam on top of using Holy Shock on CD. I beat mostly everyone else on single-target DPS in dungeons. I'm only 40, but hoping once I can get the HS glyph (using Harsh Words atm) at 45 it'll get even better. I suspect Ret will pull out ahead in time, aaaaand if I wanna AoE some stuff I'm SoL.

Although unconventional, I'm leveling as Holy on my pally alt and it does quite a bit single-target DPS with Denounce spam on top of using Holy Shock on CD. I beat mostly everyone else on single-target DPS in dungeons. I'm only 40, but hoping once I can get the HS glyph (using Harsh Words atm) at 45 it'll get even better. I suspect Ret will pull out ahead in time, aaaaand if I wanna AoE some stuff I'm SoL.

Like I said, it's unconventional, but it's also fun.

Sounds like fun, and since I have Caster Looms, this might even be easier for me. :P

I recently leveled a paladin, and to at least 80 prot should be fastest.
You get avengers shield at 10 and holy wrath at 20 and both hit incredibly hard up till 80.
(avengers crit oneshots mobs, avenger+wrath+autohit kills almost everything)
Macro harsh words wog to all attacks to spend your HP from 25 on and replace with shield of the rightous once you get it if you plan on tanking some instances. (it's worth it for instance quests)

I found MoP nerfed protection dps to the ground, in the absence of vengeance. Single target, I'd guess it's around a third of the dps of a ret, maybe less. We are back to the bad old days pre-wotlk when doing dailies as a tank was painful. (I still remember questing in Isle of Quel'danas before and after the pre-wotlk patch - it was like night and day).

However, if you want to run a lot of dungeons, definitely go prot. It's near instant queues: you can get to level 70 or so, just by doing each dungeon once and a very few other quest lines or gathering. By contrast, for dps, the queues are so long, I gave up and stuck to questing. Healing queues while leveling were somewhere imbetween the two. Prot dps is fine in dungeons - at low levels, I think tanks tend to have better AOE than most dps.

I found MoP nerfed protection dps to the ground, in the absence of vengeance. Single target, I'd guess it's around a third of the dps of a ret, maybe less. We are back to the bad old days pre-wotlk when doing dailies as a tank was painful. (I still remember questing in Isle of Quel'danas before and after the pre-wotlk patch - it was like night and day).

That's right - at level 90.
But the base damage is very high at lower levels. Up to the point of walking into a pack of equal level mobs and oneshotting three of them at once. Up till Level 80, then you should go ret for leveling.

considering you get instant que's as prot/holy idc, prot dmg seems pretty ok to me, i can kill 4-5 mobs my level(35) without any problems, if u just rush trough quests id say ret is faster but i like queing for dungeons, a lot of xp and some good items if u dont have heirlooms, like me

prot is amazing with heirlooms.. ive found no need to slowdown or stop while constantly pulling mobs with avenger shield.. 1shotting them for 1500 dmg each at lvl 10.. Avenger shield hits like a truck even at low lvls.. and the fact that it always hits 3 when in range helps even more. by the time i was 50 i was easily doing 2000 or so dps in dungeons.. mass pulling mobs.. spiking up to 3000 dps when i hit 60 and higher..

prot is amazing with heirlooms.. ive found no need to slowdown or stop while constantly pulling mobs with avenger shield.. 1shotting them for 1500 dmg each at lvl 10.. Avenger shield hits like a truck even at low lvls.. and the fact that it always hits 3 when in range helps even more. by the time i was 50 i was easily doing 2000 or so dps in dungeons.. mass pulling mobs.. spiking up to 3000 dps when i hit 60 and higher..

I don't have Heirlooms, and it's my first character apart from my first which I'll be leveling without looms.

I cba to grind dungeons to get gear, so I can grind dungeons more easily. :P

Leveling another paladin now. Prot is more than enough for questing until 80. When you feel like doing a dungeon, queue as tank/dps, and if your queue pops dps, just turn off Righteous Fury and proceed. Prot does more dps than Ret until 80 anyway, even without Vengeance, unless you build a set specifically for Ret. I didn't think it was necessary. Was usually still far-and-away the top damage output in every dungeon.

Queue for every dungeon once along the way when you get at/above the level requirement for a burst of xp from the quests within. Don't bother doing randoms. Without the quests, the dungeon xp is very poor.

I'm at 80+ now, and still queue as tank/dps (for some reason dps queues are frequently shorter in my battlegroup). I just keep a quest 2-hander in my bags and a Ret spec for questing since the mobs take a lot longer to kill in Cata as Prot. The rest of my gear is still Prot. I usually don't even need to waste a GCD on Inquisition unless I'm doing a large pull. Haven't popped as dps in a dungeon yet but I'll probably just go Ret in Prot gear with the 2-hander.

I have looms for each spec. Holy is pretty fast, Ret is poop til about 40ish, and even then, Holy or Prot is better. That being said, until 80 go prot and just faceroll everything.

Instant queues as tank, massive pulls when questing, I have yet to die outside and instance, level 65. It is all level dependant, low level, holy or prot will do you fine, upper levels start developing your playstyle and see which suits you best.

I have looms for each spec. Holy is pretty fast, Ret is poop til about 40ish, and even then, Holy or Prot is better. That being said, until 80 go prot and just faceroll everything.

Instant queues as tank, massive pulls when questing, I have yet to die outside and instance, level 65. It is all level dependant, low level, holy or prot will do you fine, upper levels start developing your playstyle and see which suits you best.

Thanks for the constructive post!
I'm almost level 64 now and I'm still looking for a shield since I accidently sold mine 2 days ago... Pretty much forced to play Retri now. :P